Firefighting supertanker

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San_Diego_Pilot
Just thought I'd post this, there's a cool cockpit video too in there too about 2 minutes in. The 747 has gotten some positive press here in Southern California recently fighting fires. Awesome. I'll have to replace "astronaut" with this as my dream job. Love that there isn't a bunch of tacky music and narration too

 
A good friend of mine is one of the pilots on the GST. Originally, a JAL plane, the thing was leased to Evergreen until they folded up. Marcos was an Evergreen captain and has the most hours of anybody in that particular aircraft. 19000 gallons of water at a time. It can be refueled and reloaded in less than 30 minutes.
 
Just thought I'd post this, there's a cool cockpit video too in there too about 2 minutes in. The 747 has gotten some positive press here in Southern California recently fighting fires. Awesome. I'll have to replace "astronaut" with this as my dream job. Love that there isn't a bunch of tacky music and narration too


That and the DC10 was flying in and out of McClellan directly overhead all through the Norcal fires.
 
19000 gallons of water at a time
So that works out to 159,000 lbs

So:
empty: 410,700 lbs
full fuel: 363,000 lbs
full water: 159,000 lbs
take off weight: 933,000 lbs... just over max takeoff of 910,000 lbs. I bet though, that for most firefighting operations, the thing has very little fuel in it, so I wonder why they didn't use that opportunity to get even more water in it? Maybe the assumption was that it would be flying low to the ground so they want it to have a fairly wide performance window

Either way, pretty boggling!

From Boeing:
upload_2017-12-28_16-3-53.png
 
That's pretty cool. Bet they were running that thing non-stop in CA
 
Yeah, that was a transpacific passenger/freighter. I doubt that it's ever going to see full fuel capacity again.

The used it in Chile early last year and CalFire was the first to contract with them in the US. The US Forest Service was placing arbitrary roadblocks in front of its use federally for a while (it was argued that they were protecting the incumbent, smaller-aircraft, contractors) but that I believe has been now straightened out. Still, California still gets their first allegiance at this point since they're already actively under contract there.
 
That's pretty cool. Bet they were running that thing non-stop in CA
Actually they complain that the don't get enough flying time, they only do ridge tops not allowed into the valleys. I worked for 10 tanker and they flew way below gross, no interior, only fuel for at most two runs.
Coulson has purchased 737s from Southwest that they're converting and the politics of who gets the contracts is fierce.
There's also a couple if super 80s converted for fire fighting.
I'm pretty sure this is not the Evergreen airplane.
There is also talk of limiting tankers to 5000 gallons, hence the Coulson buy. DC10 carries 12000 and the 747 around 20000.
 
I'm pretty sure this is not the Evergreen airplane.
I'm pretty sure it is. It was a JAL plane originally that later was leased to Evergreen. After Evergreen folded, the owner decided to develop it as the GST. As I stated, mi amigo Marcos has the most hours of anybody in that particular airframe as he flew it regularly as an Evergreen captain.
 
There is also talk of limiting tankers to 5000 gallons, hence the Coulson buy.

Any idea of the logic behind such a move? Seems foolish to me to create arbitrary limits which put boundaries on the tools available.
 
Any idea of the logic behind such a move? Seems foolish to me to create arbitrary limits which put boundaries on the tools available.
Politics. 10 tanker has a former interior department guy. I can only imagine it's for the connections. There's insane amounts of money to be made in aviation fire fighting even when the planes are sitting on the ground. Exclusive use contracts. I spent months in Australia with 10 tanker doing nothing but a weekly test flight. Of course when they fly there's more money made.
 
Politics. 10 tanker has a former interior department guy. I can only imagine it's for the connections. There's insane amounts of money to be made in aviation fire fighting even when the planes are sitting on the ground. Exclusive use contracts. I spent months in Australia with 10 tanker doing nothing but a weekly test flight. Of course when they fly there's more money made.

So, the small tanker guys have been making bigger payoffs for longer? ;-)
 
So, the small tanker guys have been making bigger payoffs for longer? ;-)
Don't know, but it's certainly less expensive to have a few guys and air tractors than a crew and support for a 10. Also more opportunities for work for the small planes.
 
Any idea of the logic behind such a move? Seems foolish to me to create arbitrary limits which put boundaries on the tools available.
They had done this (got repealed). THere was no logic other than to keep the jet guys from competing with the existing contractors.
 
... they only do ridge tops not allowed into the valleys.
I worked for a short while on Electra tankers. Turboprops. The pilots liked them because they could pull the power back for a downhill run into a valley, but the RPM stayed up while the props went flatter to keep airspeed where they wanted it, and as soon as they wanted to climb after the dump the thrust was all there, right now. Jets take time to spool up and they won't hold the airplane back. And something as big as a 747 has a lot of inertia, too. The company was going to start converting BAE 146s to tankers but the pilots were a bit concerned. Haven't heard how that's worked out.
 
Don't know, but it's certainly less expensive to have a few guys and air tractors than a crew and support for a 10. Also more opportunities for work for the small planes.

No doubt the smaller tankers have more (and more frequent) applications. However, the day may come where you need the big boy. Why would someone administratively block that?
 
I worked for a short while on Electra tankers. Turboprops. The pilots liked them because they could pull the power back for a downhill run into a valley, but the RPM stayed up while the props went flatter to keep airspeed where they wanted it, and as soon as they wanted to climb after the dump the thrust was all there, right now. Jets take time to spool up and they won't hold the airplane back. And something as big as a 747 has a lot of inertia, too. The company was going to start converting BAE 146s to tankers but the pilots were a bit concerned. Haven't heard how that's worked out.
My concern with the 10 is that the CF6 that they're using has a 50 cycle turbine borescope requirement. I asked the pilots how they get out of a valley and it's slam the power forward and pull hard. Turbines don't like to be accelerated quickly (this is not a fadec engine) and if one is going to come apart that's when it'll happen. I always hated working on 10s because if it had a engine problem it seemed like it was always #2. It's nasty up there on the patio, and dangerous without proper support equipment.
 
I worked for a short while on Electra tankers. Turboprops. The pilots liked them because they could pull the power back for a downhill run into a valley, but the RPM stayed up while the props went flatter to keep airspeed where they wanted it, and as soon as they wanted to climb after the dump the thrust was all there, right now. Jets take time to spool up and they won't hold the airplane back. And something as big as a 747 has a lot of inertia, too.

Indeed, the conventional rules about flying drops based on piston and even turboprop planes have to be modified when you're flying something the the -10 or 747. The GST guys were refining dropping on the climb rather than the descent.
 
I wouldn't ride on the 10 but on a training flight I rode in a chase plane filming the 10 doing a drop. We were as close as the pilot dared, off the aft left side, it was something to be that close to a big airplane 200 feet off the deck.
 
Turbines don't like to be accelerated quickly (this is not a fadec engine) and if one is going to come apart that's when it'll happen.
I was surprised frankly by seeing the 10 and 747 being used as extensively as they are, and in some of the videos you can really hear the throttles being jockeyed quite a bit. Imagine that puts a lot of abuse on them

The company was going to start converting BAE 146s to tankers
I am pretty sure I saw a video somewhere of BAE 146s doing drops

For fire fighting applications props do seem to make some more sense, imagine seeing a DASH 7 doing drops? Heck, the Air Greenland ones are already basically in the right paint scheme!
upload_2018-1-3_0-31-49.png
 
Bae 146 already being used as tankers, saw them in Washington last year. Don't know operator, may be Canadian.
 
Bae 146 already being used as tankers, saw them in Washington last year. Don't know operator, may be Canadian.

Conair in Abbotsford, BC converts the BAE 146. Interesting system they have as they strip the interior to get weight off, but the drop tank itself is an exterior add on that wraps around the mid-fuselage and does not breech the pressure hull.
 
DC 10 same way. They are -30 models with the center gear removed. Tanks hang from belly. They were originally designed for helicopters. I think the 747 is internal and the c-130 versions the military have are on a pallet they roll in. Some tanks are pressurized to get the fluid out, the 10 is gravity alone.
 
A neighbor at the airport has dedicated air tractors for fire, he really cashes in during season. Anyone need a job flying air tractors he's always looking for pilots. Based KIMM.
 
So that works out to 159,000 lbs

So:
empty: 410,700 lbs
full fuel: 363,000 lbs
full water: 159,000 lbs
take off weight: 933,000 lbs... just over max takeoff of 910,000 lbs. I bet though, that for most firefighting operations, the thing has very little fuel in it, so I wonder why they didn't use that opportunity to get even more water in it? Maybe the assumption was that it would be flying low to the ground so they want it to have a fairly wide performance window

Either way, pretty boggling!

From Boeing:
View attachment 58821

542000 max zero fuel weight- 410700 BOW leaves 131300 for payload.
 
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